citation technique [permalink]
Continuing the theme of my last post, Nick Disabato describes his attempt at solving the text referencing problem in his upcoming series of design essays, Distance.
Distance doesn’t have page numbers; instead, it has paragraph numbers at the beginning of each paragraph, which direct readers to the right place in the essay. In the PDF and physical book, these are to the left of each paragraph. Kindle’s and ePub’s paragraphs begin with them. And in ePub, Kindle, and PDF, each of these is represented by a permalink that can be used in a specific citation.
We know this isn’t entirely novel, but maybe it is for interactive texts. And we’re well aware that it proscribes a specific citation style that “breaks” traditional citation schemata, which may frustrate some people – but we didn’t take this decision lightly, and think it’s for the betterment of our writing to generalize citation across analog and digital platforms. It’s increasingly unreasonable to assume that readers will keep their content in just one form, and we’re well aware of that, and trying to account for that in the best way that is as reverent to the text and the reader’s habits as possible, meeting everyone halfway.
(via Jason Brennan)